Russian paper closes to prevent 'religious strife'

The Associated Press

Published: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 at 6:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 at 12:00 a.m.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Thousands chanted slogans and burned Danish flags in Pakistan and Iraq to protest cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad on Tuesday, while the second Russian newspaper in a week shut down after publishing the images that have angered Muslims worldwide.
The owner of the weekly Nash Region, based in Vologda, about 500 miles north of Moscow, said he stopped publication to prevent "religious strife."
Protests continued a day after Iran backed calls from other Muslim and world leaders for an end to the violence over the series of cartoons that first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September and have been reprinted in other publications in Europe and elsewhere.
About 2,000 people in a small town near Pakistan's Afghan border yelled "Death to America!" and "Death to Denmark!" and burned effigies of President Bush and the Danish prime minister and flags of Denmark.
A demonstration in the southern Iraqi city of Karbala drew about 10,000 people who burned Danish flags and demanded that Iraq sever ties with Denmark.
Nash Region published a collage of the cartoons on Feb. 15 as part of an article examining the furor over the drawings. Prosecutors opened an investigation of editor Anna Smirnova on charges she used her position to incite hatred.
"I shut it down so that it wouldn't become a real cause of religious strife," the newspaper's owner Mikhail Smirnov told The Associated Press.
Last week, the mayor of the southern city of Volgograd ordered closure of the city-owned newspaper Gorodskiye Vesti after it published a cartoon depicting Muhammad.
In Denmark, meanwhile, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Muslim anger over the cartoons was being exploited by radical Islamists and other interests.
Protests that erupted about a month ago over the cartoons have turned increasingly violent and left at least 45 people dead. One of the caricatures depicted the prophet with a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse.
"I think it is evident for everyone that this crisis is no longer about the 12 drawings in Jyllands-Posten," Fogh Rasmussen said. "It's about everything else and different agendas in the Muslim world. It's obvious that extremist circles exploit the situation."
A Pakistani cleric last week offered a $1 million bounty for killing one of the cartoonists.
In Indonesia, police arrested a member of a hard-line Muslim group for allegedly participating in a violent protest at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, an official said.
Some 400 members of the Islam Defenders Front threw rocks and broke windows at the embassy over the weekend, claiming the U.S. government masterminded the publication of the cartoons in a bid to discredit Islam.
The drawings were largely published by European media outlets. They offend Muslims because Islamic tradition is interpreted to bar drawings of Muhammad to discourage idolatry.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said Tuesday the cartoons were an attempt to cause a "clash of civilization" by people who are ignorant about Islam and want to demonize the religion.
"We cannot condone such insensitivities toward our beliefs and condemn it in the strongest way," he said at an Islamic conference in Pakistan. "Islam does not believe in the clash of civilizations, rather it advocates harmony, coexistence, peace and compassion."
Aziz later met with Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference.
Ihsanoglu said the cartoon controversy showed that Muslims need the same kind of legal safeguards that protect Jewish people in European countries. He noted the case of British historian David Irving, who was sentenced Monday to three years in prison in Austria for denying the Holocaust - a crime in that country.
"We need the same protection from European law," he said.
The European Union Tuesday delayed action on a bill that would have allowed people in any country to sue a person or publication in any EU country for defamation of character by media.
The bill was ordered revised after countries complained that it could lead to civil cases over the prophet cartoons in European courts.
Ihsanoglu rejected edicts calling for the killing of the cartoonists, saying such demands go against the "essence of Islam."
He said a boycott of Danish products in some Arab countries was a peaceful way to protest.
Just outside Pakistan's capital in Rawalpindi, about five major markets were closed Tuesday as shopkeepers protested the cartoons.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Thousands chanted slogans and burned Danish flags in Pakistan and Iraq to protest cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad on Tuesday, while the second Russian newspaper in a week shut down after publishing the images that have angered Muslims worldwide.<BR>
The owner of the weekly Nash Region, based in Vologda, about 500 miles north of Moscow, said he stopped publication to prevent "religious strife."<BR>
Protests continued a day after Iran backed calls from other Muslim and world leaders for an end to the violence over the series of cartoons that first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September and have been reprinted in other publications in Europe and elsewhere.<BR>
About 2,000 people in a small town near Pakistan's Afghan border yelled "Death to America!" and "Death to Denmark!" and burned effigies of President Bush and the Danish prime minister and flags of Denmark.<BR>
A demonstration in the southern Iraqi city of Karbala drew about 10,000 people who burned Danish flags and demanded that Iraq sever ties with Denmark.<BR>
Nash Region published a collage of the cartoons on Feb. 15 as part of an article examining the furor over the drawings. Prosecutors opened an investigation of editor Anna Smirnova on charges she used her position to incite hatred.<BR>
"I shut it down so that it wouldn't become a real cause of religious strife," the newspaper's owner Mikhail Smirnov told The Associated Press.<BR>
Last week, the mayor of the southern city of Volgograd ordered closure of the city-owned newspaper Gorodskiye Vesti after it published a cartoon depicting Muhammad.<BR>
In Denmark, meanwhile, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Muslim anger over the cartoons was being exploited by radical Islamists and other interests.<BR>
Protests that erupted about a month ago over the cartoons have turned increasingly violent and left at least 45 people dead. One of the caricatures depicted the prophet with a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse.<BR>
"I think it is evident for everyone that this crisis is no longer about the 12 drawings in Jyllands-Posten," Fogh Rasmussen said. "It's about everything else and different agendas in the Muslim world. It's obvious that extremist circles exploit the situation."<BR>
A Pakistani cleric last week offered a $1 million bounty for killing one of the cartoonists.<BR>
In Indonesia, police arrested a member of a hard-line Muslim group for allegedly participating in a violent protest at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, an official said.<BR>
Some 400 members of the Islam Defenders Front threw rocks and broke windows at the embassy over the weekend, claiming the U.S. government masterminded the publication of the cartoons in a bid to discredit Islam.<BR>
The drawings were largely published by European media outlets. They offend Muslims because Islamic tradition is interpreted to bar drawings of Muhammad to discourage idolatry.<BR>
Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said Tuesday the cartoons were an attempt to cause a "clash of civilization" by people who are ignorant about Islam and want to demonize the religion.<BR>
"We cannot condone such insensitivities toward our beliefs and condemn it in the strongest way," he said at an Islamic conference in Pakistan. "Islam does not believe in the clash of civilizations, rather it advocates harmony, coexistence, peace and compassion."<BR>
Aziz later met with Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference.<BR>
Ihsanoglu said the cartoon controversy showed that Muslims need the same kind of legal safeguards that protect Jewish people in European countries. He noted the case of British historian David Irving, who was sentenced Monday to three years in prison in Austria for denying the Holocaust - a crime in that country.<BR>
"We need the same protection from European law," he said.<BR>
The European Union Tuesday delayed action on a bill that would have allowed people in any country to sue a person or publication in any EU country for defamation of character by media.<BR>
The bill was ordered revised after countries complained that it could lead to civil cases over the prophet cartoons in European courts.<BR>
Ihsanoglu rejected edicts calling for the killing of the cartoonists, saying such demands go against the "essence of Islam."<BR>
He said a boycott of Danish products in some Arab countries was a peaceful way to protest.<BR>
Just outside Pakistan's capital in Rawalpindi, about five major markets were closed Tuesday as shopkeepers protested the cartoons.<BR>